Politics P. 14
Akande
Saturday Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.net
February y 15,, 2014
13
Defection to APC is transformation endorsed by God –Hon. Makinde
Jega
Mu’azu
APC: The highs and lows of membership registration
FEMI OYEWESO ABEOKUTA
C
hairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Professor Attahiru Jega, blew the final whistle for the politicians to commence what they know how to do best when, penultimate week, he released the time-table for the year 2015 general election. On January 25th this year, to be precise, INEC announced that the ban on electoral activities have been lifted and that gave all the political parties that will be participating in the poll the leverage needed to strategise for the election. As expected, the two leading political parties - the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Party (APC) – which have in recent time, been in rivalry, have seized the opportunity to accuse one another of scheming to rig the election even when the umpire has not called for candidates’ lists. All the opposition political parties which converged to found a new party in APC, felt it was necessary to carry out registration of all its members in order to afford it the opportunity of fielding candidates for the 2015 general elections in a way that truly reflects all the component parts. The national leadership of APC fixed its membership registration exercise to commence on Wednesday February 5th and was expected to terminate on Sunday February 9th before the exercise was eventually extended till February 11th. The national leadership of the party explained that it was extending the date so as to give room for members of other political parties which included the Congress for
Progressive Change (CPC), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) as well as others which all fused together to form APC to be part of the registration exercise. But in what appeared to be a suspicion game and preempting the opponent , the PDP sparked off a controversy over the APC membership registration exercise as it accused the party of scheming to manipulate the year 2015 general election with an untenable figure. PDP also accused the governors of the APC controlled states of coercing civil servants to partake in the on-going party registration exercise as party members. The National Auditor of the PDP, Alhaji Adewole Adeyanju, was the first to raise the alarm before other members of the party joined. In a statement which he signed in Abuja, Adeyanju alleged that APC had already coerced civil servants, “especially in the South- West where I come from” t o get registered as card carrying member of APC. He explained that the rationale behind such was to enable APC arrogate pseudo glory to itself peradventure it loses the year 2015 presidential election. The PDP national auditor claimed that the intention of the APC was to fool the nation that they had registered over 100 million members at the end of the exercise. He further alleged that governors in all the APC controlled states of South West had also attached promotions and other benefits to be enjoyed by civil servants to the registration exercise. “This madness on the part of the APC governors of forcing the innocent civil servants to register for their party must stop; it is real especially in the South- West where I
come from. I have been receiving series of reports on this since the beginning of the exercise. “The innocent civil servants will have no option than to succumb to the directive for jobs security since they have no jobs elsewhere. APC is desperate, they have been telling the civil servant to go and register with APC, and that without the party’s membership card, there will not be promotion for them and later they will go a step further that without it you cannot enjoy certain services being provided by the APC controlled states.” Apart from Adeyanju, the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, in another statement also accused APC of constituting itself to a nuisance in the political landscape of Nigeria. Back in the South West however, chairman of the Ogun State chapter of PDP, Engineer Bayo Dayo, alleged that the APC had been forcing civil servants and the under-aged, especially students, to register as members of the ruling party in the state. Dayo made this allegation during an emergency meeting of the party held in Ijebu-Igbo, the country home of Chairman of the Organising and Mobilisation Committee of the party in the South West, Buruji Kashamu. Dayo stated that the alleged forcible registration of civil servants in the state by the Ibikunle Amosun-led APC administration in Ogun State contradicted the laws of the land, stressing that PDP would report the development in the state to the appropriate authorities at the national level in order to put a stop to it. In defence of the accusations however, APC described the PDP’s allegations as
sabotage of its ongoing membership registration exercise. The party said PDP’s rush to the media to condemn the process had shown that the ruling party was a clog in the wheel of progress of democracy in Nigeria. APC’s National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the only reason why the PDP is leveling the allegation against it is because the ruling party had seen the handwriting on the wall, since the registration started, and had consequently become overly jittery. “The PDP is wrong about its claim that the APC is engaging in phantom registration. The party should know that while anyone can manufacture numbers, no one can manufacture human beings. “Therefore, in the fullness of time, any party that gives a fake number of its membership will get its comeuppance”. Mohammed also explained that within the first three days of APC’s membership registration exercise, the party had met and exceeded the target set by the national leaders for the party. “PDP officials should not just sit in their Abuja offices and make phantom allegations about some party engaging in phantom registration. They should go out there and see for themselves what is going on and how Nigerians are streaming aboard the train of change that the APC has become”. Apart from APC’s National Publicity Secretary, Mohammed, the Ogun State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Alhaji Yusuf Olaniyonu, also condemned the allegation leveled against the Ogun State government that it was forcing civil servants to register as card-carrying CONTINUED ON PAGE 15